Yeah. True. But I think it's a good deterrent. Over time it'll make enforcements easier. Companies aren't (generally) dumb.
Presented with a polite letter that informs them they are in violation of copyrigth law, has references to half a dozen similar cases in the same jurisdiction, and a reasonable way of getting into compliance, most will, after a short conference with their lawyers, fold their deck and play along.
It's a problem with international companies though. Harald does a good job of it in Germany (and deliberately doesn't publish details on companies that fold, that's part of the carrot: Fix this NOW, and we'll avoid public embarassment), but he has little deterring effect on companies in other parts of the world.
We need similar warriors on every continent, preferably in every country.
Some jurisdictions have severability built-in to contract-law. In other words, if one point of a contract is counter to local law, the rest of the contract can still be considered valid, and a person following every part of the contract, except for the point that conflicts with local law, can be held to have upheld his side of the deal.
For those jurisdictions that don't, however, such as the USA, you are correct.
Yeah. And if that view wins, then it means EULAs are ignorable. (because if the copying from disk-to-ram and such which are required for normal operation aren't copyirigth-relevant, then you require no permission to use software however you please.)
In the case of the GPL though, it's irrelevant. Because the GPL explicitly says:
This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force.
"Without conditions" shouldn't be all that hard to comply with, even if you *do* need to comply with it. (and if the minority-option wins trough, you can ignore even this, which makes no difference really)
Sure it does. And those suburbs are among the easiest places on earth to wire up. There's literally thousands of houses, stacked neatly together in one area. The typical suburban-house is *not* situated a mile from the nearest neighbour, more like 50 feet.
It's an interesting concept, but it is not in any way a "new" concept. It was, for example, explored in Drexlers "Engines of Creation" that is (in full) available online under http://www.e-drexler.com/ EOC was first published in 1986, so the idea is more than 20 years old.
I agree they need to know that two separate editions are really the "same book". They should definitly have a button for "this book is really the same as that"
True. broadband-over-laser is waaaay cool if you've got a clear LOS. Only a pity that they generally use invisivle wavelength lasers. It'd look ubercool with a blue network of laser-links spanning over a city. You'd only see it on foggy nigths offcourse. Very blade-runnerish.
It's not hard to make either. A 100Mbps 5km-LOS-laser-link can be made for like $100 from parts out of Radio Shack. This ain't rocket-science folks. (it's somewhat tricky aiming it though, you want a nice tigth beam, but that also means you need to aim really well:-)
So ? Are you saying if you cut USA up into 50 states rather than 1 country, then it'd be easier to wire it up ?
That is completely inane. The relevant part is offcourse the cost for each subscriber. Certainly wiring up 300 million people in the USA will cost more than wiring up 5 million in Norway. But there'll then also be 60 times as many people to *pay* for that, rigth ?
The last mile ain't expensive in dense areas. I know because I just paid for it.
My neighbourhood installed fibre-to-the-basement this february. Every house has a single-mode fibre capable of 10Gbps+ into the basement, though we opted to install only 100Mbit/s tranceivers because more is, frankly, not needed today.
This in Norway, one of the most expensive countries in the world to buy labour.(so you'd think it'd be expensive) Total cost ? Aproximately $100K, for over 200 houses. Something like $400/house. Installing in apartment-blocks and similar should be even cheaper. And labour is cheaper in the USA than in Norway, so that should make it cheaper too.
Now, hooking up individual houses that are spaced kilometres apart, that is expensive. But frankly, how large a proportion of American do live more than say 100m from the nearest neighbour ? 1% ?
That's interesting. Sweden and Norway have proprotional representation too. (though there are differences to the Finnish system)
Funny thing though, these also have (and have had) socialist governments for the majority of the time after the war. Despite this, there is more real competition on the broadband market than I'm used to from the USA.
No. Not true. Sweden is only *sligthly* more urbanized than USA (81% versus 77%) and Norway, for example, is actually *less* urbanized than USA at 74%.
Urbanization explains something, for some countries. But not the difference between USA and the Nordic countries. (which have similar urbanization, and *lower* population-density)
In the USA about 77% live in a city larger than 10.000 people. Similar numbers are 75% for Norway, 80% for Sweden and 82% for Finland, all of which have higher broadband-penetration than the USA.
You are however correct that the urbanization is generally higher in the central-european states. For example Netherlands is at 91%.
This is not true at all, but is merely a lame excuse. True, some parts of Europe are more concentrated than some parts of the USA, but that is by no means true for all parts of the USA or all parts of Europe, and broadband is similarily superior in areas where people are dispersed significantly thinner than in the USA.
USA has 31 people for every square km. Norway has 12. Sweden has 20. Finnland has 15. All of these countries have significantly higher broadband-penetration than USA.
Furthermore, broadband-choice is poor even in American mega-cities which certainly have enough population-density for anyone. (better than in rural arease, but nevertheless poor)
USA is large, but most people live in the cities. 77% of the population live in a city or town with above 10.000 people. This number is similar to what the countries I mentioned above. (also all in the 73% - 83% area with Norway lowest and Finland highest)
Explaining this real issue away with geographical features only serves to hide the real problem -- lack of real competition.
Unknown. But the paper hypothesises that it may be possible to build robots that can move efficiently over land *and* water, using bipedal or quadroped legged walking for both.
I don't think it's *that* hard to see possible applications for this. I bet the military could imagine a few, for starters. (and that tends to be a good start for robotics, lots of stuff that are today commonplace started out as military projects. Jet-planes anyone ?
Sci-Fi will adopt this immediately, some of it already has.
Not because of flexibility or anything lame like that. No, for a much more fundamental reason. Sleek and skin-tight is just plain more *sexy* than bulky inflated ones.
Uhm, no.
You're using a trick. In the 18th century, 95% of all people wheren't "educated", so when you say "most educated people" and talk about the 18th century, you're talking of perhaps the 3% best-educated. When you talk of today and say "most educated people" you are refering to a much larger group.
The oposite of your claim is true: an average person knows *much* more foreign language today than he/she did in the 18th century, and needs to too.
For the simple reason that people communicate *much* more internationally and travel *much* more internationally.
An average 25-year old today communicates and travels more abroad in a year than an average 18th century person did in their *life*
Except it is not really possible to make those cheap with todays technology. They require human-sized magnets with very high precision and field-strengths from 0.3 to 4 teslas, give or take. Which gives you the choice between literally dozens of tons of permanent magnets, resistive magnets eating hundred KW or more and at that providing poot precision, or superconducting magnets, such as niobium-titanium at cryogenic temperatures, typically provided by liquid helium. This ain't cheap for fairly fundamental reasons.
Also, even if it *was* cheap, you'd need to be a medical doctor or similarily educated to make any use of it, which ain't the case for graphics-cards.
This card, on the other hand, is essentially a bog-standard pciE graphics-card, except it is cut in two, and there is an interface on each side of the cut that communicates over fibre-optics.
We already *know* the price of a pciE-interface (~$10 or thereabouts) and of a quad-1600x1200 graphics-card without accelerated 3D ($150 or thereabouts)
Linking the two halves with fibre-optic will offcourse cost additional but there's no fundamental reason it needs to cost $2000.
So yeah, it's exactly like that, except for the detail that this has parts-cost of perhaps $150 and an MRI has parts-cost around $1million. Oh yeah, and apart from the fact that there are hundreds of millions of people using graphics-cards and screens every day and a -tiny- group of people competent to use an MRI.
Oh yeah, and an MRI is *extremely* dangerous. (you need insane precautions to avoid getting magnetic metal near it...) This ain't at all.
So, the same, except for some very minor details, yeah.
Sure they won't sell many - not at that price.
That's self-defetaing though: because we don't sell many, we'll have to sell them expensively to recoup initial development. When we sell them expensively we won't sell many.
Everyone who currently uses thin clients and have experienced annoyances (=most of them) would consider them at a reasonable price. As you point out, even private individuals would, if the price was dropped by atleast 80%.
It's wireless. It's rounded, better to hold. There's *one* thumbswitch rather than the braindead 4-buttons-allthough-theyre-one-under-the-shell of the PS2 original controller. I personally also find it prettier than the original controller, but that's a matter of taste I guess.
Rumble also eats batteries, which matter atleast somewhat for wireless controllers. I've got a Logitech one for my PS2, and with rumble on and lots-of-rumbling games the batteries are dead in aprox 20 hours of playtime. Without rumble they last literally 10 times that, or practically forever. (granted, that controller has ridicolously powerful rumble, I'm sure it's possible to do it a lot more energy-conserving, still it *does* mean moving parts, which will always cost some energy)
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Yeah. True. But I think it's a good deterrent. Over time it'll make enforcements easier. Companies aren't (generally) dumb.
Presented with a polite letter that informs them they are in violation of copyrigth law, has references to half a dozen similar cases in the same jurisdiction, and a reasonable way of getting into compliance, most will, after a short conference with their lawyers, fold their deck and play along.
It's a problem with international companies though. Harald does a good job of it in Germany (and deliberately doesn't publish details on companies that fold, that's part of the carrot: Fix this NOW, and we'll avoid public embarassment), but he has little deterring effect on companies in other parts of the world.
We need similar warriors on every continent, preferably in every country.
Certainly it'll be rare for someone with no internet-access to by a wifi-enabled skype-phone :-)
Some jurisdictions have severability built-in to contract-law. In other words, if one point of a contract is counter to local law, the rest of the contract can still be considered valid, and a person following every part of the contract, except for the point that conflicts with local law, can be held to have upheld his side of the deal.
For those jurisdictions that don't, however, such as the USA, you are correct.
Yeah. And if that view wins, then it means EULAs are ignorable. (because if the copying from disk-to-ram and such which are required for normal operation aren't copyirigth-relevant, then you require no permission to use software however you please.)
In the case of the GPL though, it's irrelevant. Because the GPL explicitly says:
This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force.
"Without conditions" shouldn't be all that hard to comply with, even if you *do* need to comply with it. (and if the minority-option wins trough, you can ignore even this, which makes no difference really)
True. The GPL was not followed. But here's the thing: It's not forbidden to ignore the GPL. Its not law, afterall.
...."
It's not that complicated.
Normally, Copyrigth law says that you aren't allowed redistributing or copying creative works that someone else created.
The GPL says, in effect: "We give you permission to do those things anyway, if you follow these rules
So, if you break those rules, you *don't* have permission, which means if you still copy, you're in violation of copyrigth law.
This is why the GPL is not an contract. (or an EULA, and why programs such as OpenOffice that insist on "I agree" on installation are braindead)
It doesn't matter if you "agreed" to it or not. Copyrigth-law says you need permission. GPL says you get it if you follow the rules.
Sure it does. And those suburbs are among the easiest places on earth to wire up. There's literally thousands of houses, stacked neatly together in one area. The typical suburban-house is *not* situated a mile from the nearest neighbour, more like 50 feet.
It's an interesting concept, but it is not in any way a "new" concept. It was, for example, explored in Drexlers "Engines of Creation" that is (in full) available online under http://www.e-drexler.com/ EOC was first published in 1986, so the idea is more than 20 years old.
I agree they need to know that two separate editions are really the "same book". They should definitly have a button for "this book is really the same as that"
True. broadband-over-laser is waaaay cool if you've got a clear LOS. Only a pity that they generally use invisivle wavelength lasers. It'd look ubercool with a blue network of laser-links spanning over a city. You'd only see it on foggy nigths offcourse. Very blade-runnerish. It's not hard to make either. A 100Mbps 5km-LOS-laser-link can be made for like $100 from parts out of Radio Shack. This ain't rocket-science folks. (it's somewhat tricky aiming it though, you want a nice tigth beam, but that also means you need to aim really well :-)
The maps are interesting. How, in your opinion, does Norway compare with USA ?
So ? Are you saying if you cut USA up into 50 states rather than 1 country, then it'd be easier to wire it up ?
That is completely inane. The relevant part is offcourse the cost for each subscriber. Certainly wiring up 300 million people in the USA will cost more than wiring up 5 million in Norway. But there'll then also be 60 times as many people to *pay* for that, rigth ?
The last mile ain't expensive in dense areas. I know because I just paid for it.
My neighbourhood installed fibre-to-the-basement this february. Every house has a single-mode fibre capable of 10Gbps+ into the basement, though we opted to install only 100Mbit/s tranceivers because more is, frankly, not needed today.
This in Norway, one of the most expensive countries in the world to buy labour.(so you'd think it'd be expensive) Total cost ? Aproximately $100K, for over 200 houses. Something like $400/house. Installing in apartment-blocks and similar should be even cheaper. And labour is cheaper in the USA than in Norway, so that should make it cheaper too.
Now, hooking up individual houses that are spaced kilometres apart, that is expensive. But frankly, how large a proportion of American do live more than say 100m from the nearest neighbour ? 1% ?
That's interesting. Sweden and Norway have proprotional representation too. (though there are differences to the Finnish system) Funny thing though, these also have (and have had) socialist governments for the majority of the time after the war. Despite this, there is more real competition on the broadband market than I'm used to from the USA.
No. Not true. Sweden is only *sligthly* more urbanized than USA (81% versus 77%) and Norway, for example, is actually *less* urbanized than USA at 74%. Urbanization explains something, for some countries. But not the difference between USA and the Nordic countries. (which have similar urbanization, and *lower* population-density)
In the USA about 77% live in a city larger than 10.000 people. Similar numbers are 75% for Norway, 80% for Sweden and 82% for Finland, all of which have higher broadband-penetration than the USA.
You are however correct that the urbanization is generally higher in the central-european states. For example Netherlands is at 91%.
This is not true at all, but is merely a lame excuse. True, some parts of Europe are more concentrated than some parts of the USA, but that is by no means true for all parts of the USA or all parts of Europe, and broadband is similarily superior in areas where people are dispersed significantly thinner than in the USA.
USA has 31 people for every square km. Norway has 12. Sweden has 20. Finnland has 15. All of these countries have significantly higher broadband-penetration than USA.
Furthermore, broadband-choice is poor even in American mega-cities which certainly have enough population-density for anyone. (better than in rural arease, but nevertheless poor)
USA is large, but most people live in the cities. 77% of the population live in a city or town with above 10.000 people. This number is similar to what the countries I mentioned above. (also all in the 73% - 83% area with Norway lowest and Finland highest)
Explaining this real issue away with geographical features only serves to hide the real problem -- lack of real competition.
Unknown. But the paper hypothesises that it may be possible to build robots that can move efficiently over land *and* water, using bipedal or quadroped legged walking for both. I don't think it's *that* hard to see possible applications for this. I bet the military could imagine a few, for starters. (and that tends to be a good start for robotics, lots of stuff that are today commonplace started out as military projects. Jet-planes anyone ?
That too, I guess.
Sure !
Sci-Fi will adopt this immediately, some of it already has.
Not because of flexibility or anything lame like that. No, for a much more fundamental reason. Sleek and skin-tight is just plain more *sexy* than bulky inflated ones.
Uhm, no. You're using a trick. In the 18th century, 95% of all people wheren't "educated", so when you say "most educated people" and talk about the 18th century, you're talking of perhaps the 3% best-educated. When you talk of today and say "most educated people" you are refering to a much larger group. The oposite of your claim is true: an average person knows *much* more foreign language today than he/she did in the 18th century, and needs to too. For the simple reason that people communicate *much* more internationally and travel *much* more internationally. An average 25-year old today communicates and travels more abroad in a year than an average 18th century person did in their *life*
Except it is not really possible to make those cheap with todays technology. They require human-sized magnets with very high precision and field-strengths from 0.3 to 4 teslas, give or take. Which gives you the choice between literally dozens of tons of permanent magnets, resistive magnets eating hundred KW or more and at that providing poot precision, or superconducting magnets, such as niobium-titanium at cryogenic temperatures, typically provided by liquid helium. This ain't cheap for fairly fundamental reasons.
Also, even if it *was* cheap, you'd need to be a medical doctor or similarily educated to make any use of it, which ain't the case for graphics-cards.
This card, on the other hand, is essentially a bog-standard pciE graphics-card, except it is cut in two, and there is an interface on each side of the cut that communicates over fibre-optics.
We already *know* the price of a pciE-interface (~$10 or thereabouts) and of a quad-1600x1200 graphics-card without accelerated 3D ($150 or thereabouts)
Linking the two halves with fibre-optic will offcourse cost additional but there's no fundamental reason it needs to cost $2000.
So yeah, it's exactly like that, except for the detail that this has parts-cost of perhaps $150 and an MRI has parts-cost around $1million. Oh yeah, and apart from the fact that there are hundreds of millions of people using graphics-cards and screens every day and a -tiny- group of people competent to use an MRI.
Oh yeah, and an MRI is *extremely* dangerous. (you need insane precautions to avoid getting magnetic metal near it...) This ain't at all.
So, the same, except for some very minor details, yeah.
Sure they won't sell many - not at that price. That's self-defetaing though: because we don't sell many, we'll have to sell them expensively to recoup initial development. When we sell them expensively we won't sell many. Everyone who currently uses thin clients and have experienced annoyances (=most of them) would consider them at a reasonable price. As you point out, even private individuals would, if the price was dropped by atleast 80%.
99% of the people and organizations that would buy it at a reasonable price are not the target market at this price. That was precisely my point.
Nah. Don't agree.
. 0.jpg
http://www.logitech.com/repository/367/jpg/2646.1
Better than the Sony-one.
It's wireless. It's rounded, better to hold. There's *one* thumbswitch rather than the braindead 4-buttons-allthough-theyre-one-under-the-shell of the PS2 original controller. I personally also find it prettier than the original controller, but that's a matter of taste I guess.
Rumble also eats batteries, which matter atleast somewhat for wireless controllers. I've got a Logitech one for my PS2, and with rumble on and lots-of-rumbling games the batteries are dead in aprox 20 hours of playtime. Without rumble they last literally 10 times that, or practically forever. (granted, that controller has ridicolously powerful rumble, I'm sure it's possible to do it a lot more energy-conserving, still it *does* mean moving parts, which will always cost some energy)